Below is the poem by By Himanshu Kumar, On Dayamani Barla, The iron Lady of Jharkhand who is behind bars now and has been fighting for the land rights of the tribal people, and is now behind bars.Dayamani Barla is an indigenoustribal journalist and activist from the Indian state of Jharkhand. She came from very humble backgrounds and worked as a maid to pay her way through the University. She became notable for her activism in opposing Arcelor Mittal‘s steel plant that tribal activist say would displace forty (40) villages. She has won a number of prestigious awards for journalism.

Born in Arhara village in Jharkhand, Dayamani Barla, 44, could have been one of the faceless thousands displaced by India’s largest steel plant.Today, she leads the mass movement against it. She could have been another Adivasi with a crumbling house and a buried story. Instead, she chose to become a storyteller, the voice of Jharkhand, the first tribal journalist from her state. Barla paid for her education by working as a domestic help in Ranchi. She washed dishes for the police, ate leftovers, stayed in a shed with buffaloes and coolies, learnt to type in English and Hindi, and worked as a typist for one rupee an hour. With a rural reporting fellowship and a bank loan of 25,000, she founded the Jan Hak Patrika. “I wanted to present the point of view of Adivasis, Dalits and women,” she says.

The money lasted two years. By then, she had convinced established local media like Prabhat Khabar to give space to Adivasi and Dalit issues. Barla is also at forefront of the Adivasi Mulvasi Astitva Raksha Manch, a people’s movement that unites thousands of Adivasis, Dalits and farmers across Jharkhand. In the past decade, she has trekked from village to village, alerting those who stand to be displaced by a steel plant, protesting against dams on the Koel and Kari rivers, against delimitation that would reduce the number of seats for scheduled tribes, against corrupt MGNREGA middlemen. Death threats from shadowy unknown figures have not deterred her.

Since 2010, Ms. Barla has led a movement against Jharkhand government acquiring 227 acres of paddy farmers’ land in Nagri village, 15 kms from Ranchi, for the campuses of Indian Institute of Management, Indian Institute of Information Technology and the National University of Study & Research in Law (NUSRL). The government claims it acquired the land from them in 1957-58 to build an extension to Birsa Agricultural University. However, Right to Information (RTI) applications filed by Ms. Barla revealed that of the 153 families to whom the government had offered a total compensation in 1957, only 25 families in Nagri took it and the rest had refused.

There is anEenglish translation below, and you can also here the recitation at cgnetswara here

कम्पनी के गुलाम

कम्पनी के मतलब की शिक्षा

कम्पनी के मतलब का ज्ञान

कम्पनी के फायदे के लिये विज्ञान

कम्पनी की मर्जी की सरकार

कम्पनी के हुकुमबरदार कोतवाल

अब तुम ही बताओ

हमको दयामनी बरला से क्या काम ?

It is a grave danger now to be Dayamani Barla
It is a danger to be an adivasi
It is a danger now to reside in the village

There is land in the village
There are trees in the village
There are rivers in the village
There are minerals in the village
There are people in the village
There is also Dayamani Barla in the village

The company is eying the land of the village
The company is eying the rivers of the village
The company is eying the trees of the village
The company is eying the minerals of the village
But Dayamani Barla resides in the village

The government fears the company
The police fears the company
The newspaper fears the company
Dayamani Barla does not fear the company

It is the rule of the company
So the company is angry
That’s how with the order of the company chief
The police chief put Dayamani Barla
Behind the bars of prison

Come, let’s celebrate
Dayamani Barla is now in jail
Now Dayamani Barla won’t be able to stop the company chief
Now the company chief will snatch the river of her village
Now the company chief will snatch the land of her village
Now the company chief will snatch the minerals of her village
Now the company chief will develop the country
Now the company chef will make everything alright

When will be relieved of all the Dayamani Barlas of this country?
When will all our rivers
All our trees
All the land
And all the forests
Be taken over by the company

Company’s factories
Company’s jobs
Company’s cars
Company’s shopping malls
Company roads
Company’s toll booths
Company’s college
Company’s premium technology institutes
Company’s premium management institutes
Company’s university
In which those who study will become
Slaves of the company

Education as needed by the company
Knowledge as needed by the company
Knowledge to profit the company
Government to suit the will of the company
Cops to shout “Sir yes sir” to the company